FIRST RELEASE		CROATIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS 10000 ZAGREB, ILICA 3, PHONE: +385 1 4806-111, P.O.B. 80, CROATIA ISSN 1334-0565
YEAR: XLVI.	ZAGREB, 25 FEBRUARY, 2010		NUMBER: 4.4.8/12.
				OBLIGED TO NOTIFY DATA SOURCE

CONGRESSES AND OTHER BUSINESS MEETINGS, DECEMBER 2009

In December 2009, the number of business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 383. There were 139 meetings with overnight stays and 244 without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 617. Each meeting was held 2 days on the average. The number of participants at all meetings was 33 801, out of which the number of domestic participants was 31 702 (94%) and the number of foreign ones was 2 099 (6%).

According to professional organisers, the most meetings, 215 of them (56%), were organised by business entities.

In December 2009, the turnover of 10 328 356 kuna was generated from business meetings. Out of the total turnover, 6 827 508 kuna (66%) were generated from the meetings with overnight stays and 3 500 848 kuna (34%) from the meetings without overnight stays.

In the period from January to December 2009, there were 4 869 business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia. Out of this number, there were 2 280 (47%) meetings with overnight stays and 2 589 (53%) without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 9 390. Business meetings were attended by 384 476 participants, out of which 342 920 (89%) domestic and 41 556 (11%) foreign ones.

In the period from January to December 2009, the total turnover generated from all business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 221 236 271 kuna. Out of this sum, 188 553 588 kuna (85%) were generated from meetings with overnight stays and 32 682 683 kuna (15%) from meetings without them.

1. BUSINESS ENTITIES IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, DECEMBER 2009

	Business entities	Halls	Seats
Total	56	297	33 881
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	50	240	18 043
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	6	57	15 838

2.   BUSINESS MEETINGS HELD IN PERIOD FROM JANUARY – DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days  at meetings	Participants			Night overstays	Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Participants without overnight stays	Participants with overnight stays
XII. 2009.
Total	383	617	33 801	28 883	4 918	10 507	10 328 356
Meetings with overnights	139	304	8 670	3 752	4 918	10 507	6 827 508
Meetings without overnights	244	313	25 131	25 131	-	-	3 500 848
I. – XII. 2009.
Total	4 869	9 390	384 476	258 890	125 586	300 566	221 236 271
Meetings with overnights	2 280	5 881	166 719	41 133	125 586	300 566	188 553 588
Meetings without overnights	2 589	3 509	217 757	217 757	-	-	32 682 683

3.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover  generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By  domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	383	617	33 801	31 702	2 099	10 507	7 287	3 220	10 328 356
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	361	588	27 112	25 283	1 829	10 507	7 287	3 220	9 970 293
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	22	29	6 689	6 419	270	-	-	-	358 063

4.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY – DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By foreign participants
Total	4 869	9 390	384 476	342 920	41 556	300 566	199 876	100 690	221 236 271
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	4 545	8 924	324 571	284 583	39 988	300 566	199 876	100 690	218 603 792
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	324	466	59 905	58 337	1 568	-	-	-	2 632 479

5.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE, DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants, total			Night overstays			Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna,  incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	383	617	33 801	31 702	2 099	10 507	7 287	3 220	10 328 356
Corporate/business meeting	109	137	7 477	6 947	530	731	306	425	1 642 729
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	188	343	16 482	15 323	1 159	6 750	4 142	2 608	6 641 515
Public conference/lecture	28	41	2 226	2 157	69	814	701	113	584 852
General assembly	9	9	2 130	2 130	-	-	-	-	67 487
Incentive arrangement	5	11	249	193	56	386	327	59	212 363
Team building	11	22	864	850	14	1 783	1 769	14	644 291
Other^1)	33	54	4 373	4 102	271	43	42	1	535 119

1)  Convention and other types of business meetings

6.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPES, JANUARY – DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	4 869	9 390	384 476	342 920	41 556	300 566	199 876	100 690	221 236 271
Corporate/business meeting	1 347	2 036	67 867	62 307	5 560	17 625	9 437	8 188	27 042 809
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	2 537	5 554	215 186	189 071	26 115	223 801	152 010	71 791	151 551 237
Public conference/lecture	253	447	29 274	26 934	2 340	15 421	10 774	4 647	14 023 570
Governmental conferences	12	27	1 157	906	251	971	339	632	687 543
General assembly	93	115	19 113	18 877	236	2 314	2 272	42	1 488 217
Convention	17	34	4 601	4 286	315	1 259	828	431	1 014 328
Incentive arrangement	96	256	5 798	2 775	3 023	13 255	4 613	8 642	11 417 500
Team building	141	326	9 997	9 214	783	19 374	17 719	1 655	7 764 653
Other	373	595	31 483	28 550	2 933	6 546	1 884	4 662	6 246 414

7. BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover  generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	383	617	33 801	31  702	2  099	10  507	7 287	3 220	10 328 356
International organisations	5	10	232	177	55	100	50	50	93 798
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	31	45	1 818	1  786	32	353	285	68	455 299
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	13	26	983	861	122	1 163	681	482	482 158
Travel agencies	9	11	297	281	16	36	16	20	53 078
Business entities (enterprises)	215	319	19 439	19  006	433	4  597	4  049	548	5 285 423
Professional associations	48	63	3 015	2  999	16	491	442	49	607  602
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs)	36	59	5 909	5  743	166	1  548	1  516	32	1 387 315
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	26	84	2 108	849	1 259	2 219	248	1 971	1  963 683

8.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, JANUARY – DECEMBER 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	4 869	9 390	384 476	342 920	41 556	300 566	199 876	100 690	221 236 271
International organisations	121	353	7 951	4 427	3 524	13 714	3 730	9 984	10 372 887
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	271	534	21 834	20 507	1 327	21 784	18 605	3 179	13 944 050
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	253	642	30 295	26 503	3 792	27 387	18 963	8 424	15 156 821
Travel agencies	303	678	24 321	19 050	5 271	41 770	26 901	14 869	29 029 000
Business entities (enterprises)	2 410	4 027	168 295	160 870	7 425	62 892	48 845	14 047	64 131 848
Professional associations	568	1 149	53 029	49 188	3 841	69 224	55 734	13 490	40 130 157
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties,  NGOs)	556	1 006	52 713	50 843	1 870	28 007	23 268	4 739	17 497 361
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	387	1 001	26 038	11 532	14 506	35 788	3 830	31 958	30 974 147

NOTES ON METHODOLOGY

Data sources

The data source is the monthly Report of Business Meeting (TU-23 form).

Coverage and comparability

The survey covers all business entities performing business meetings, incentive arrangements and team building programmes (hotel and restaurant facilities, universities, concert and congress halls, fair, cultural facilities). The survey covers all business meetings with at least one realised overnight and all business meetings without realised overnights attended by 20 participants or more.

Due to the fact that not all of reporting units have established their registers of business meetings, the coverage in this survey is not full yet.

Definitions

Corporate/business meetings are those business-oriented meetings in which the participants represent the same company, corporate group, joint-venture, or client/provider relations.

Congresses are meetings of generally fixed frequency having an extraordinary nature, in which participants belonging to different places meet at a predetermined site and time in order to discuss things. Scientific congresses and conferences can be subcategorised into forums, colloquiums, seminars and symposiums.

Public conferences are unidirectional meetings in which discussion is proposed by the conference organiser, the audience taking an essentially passive role, and where specialised knowledge is not necessarily required. 

Governmental conferences are technical or political meetings between governments with the aim of discussing national or international topics to reach agreements of a political nature.

General assemblies are civil meetings, limited to the members of one organisation, of an internal nature, committed to discussing the function of the organisation itself, and to signing legally binding agreements (election of candidates, reviewing programmes, setting norms and rules) concerning predominated issues.

Conventions are general and formal meetings of legislative bodies, social or economic groups in order to provide information on a particular situation in order to deliberate and, consequently, establish consent on policies among the participants. Usually of limited duration with set objectives, but no determined frequency.

Incentive travel is a marketing method aimed at stimulating the employees of a certain corporation and improving the corporation’s functioning. Incentive travel is a stimulating travel given as an award to the best employees of a certain corporation. It has replaced classic stimulating money award etc. This is the way firms thank their clients, motivate or reward their employees for their loyalty and hard work invested in firm’s efficiency, by taking them to a nice incentive travel. Incentive programmes include: golfing, sailing, rafting, ballooning, shooting, cycling, paint ball, ATV safari etc.

Team building programme is a special type of incentive travel offering active relaxation at the same time, organised by agencies catering for the employees of certain firms and institutions with the aim of boosting the team spirit, practicing coordination and offering other incentives.

Other types of business meetings are presentations, candidate testing, promoting campaigns, religious congresses and similar meetings.

Business meetings with overnights are meetings at which at least a part of participants realised an overnight.

Business meetings without overnights are meetings at which no participants realised an overnight. Regarding meetings without overnights, e.g. evaluation of candidates for a job, it is possible for the number of days to be more than one, since a meeting may last for several days, but not all participants stayed all the time at the meeting (that is, there were no overnights).

Professional organisers of business meetings or incentive travels are institutions, associations, companies that organise a business meeting (orderers), such as: international governmental organisations (e.g. UN, EU, EFTA, OECD, NATO), international NGOs, the Government of the Republic of Croatia and administration, bodies of state and local government and self-government, universities, polytechnics, research centres, academies, institutes, travel agencies, business entities (enterprises), professional associations and others (e.g. banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs, religious organisations etc.) as well as foreign enterprises, institutions and organisations.

Turnover generated by meetings or incentive travels in kuna (including VAT) includes the turnover of accommodation services, food services (restaurants, bar services, cafés), hire of the meeting rooms, display area and technical equipment when the reporting is being done by accommodation facilities, fair, universities, cultural institutions or other service providers.

Abbreviatins

ATV	All Terrain Vehicle
EFTA	European Free Trade Association
e.g.	for example (from Latin: exempli gratia)
etc.	and so on (from Latin: et cetera)
EU	European Union
incl.	including
NATO	North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NGO	non-government organisation
OECD	Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
VAT	value added tax
UN	United Nations

Symbols

-  no occurrence